AHH ARIA!

Halleluliah that the Hallowed’s end is over so now I can finally get down to gaining some skills!

That’s right! I can finally actually get skills without having horrible situations forced onto me without pause, without control and without any mercy towards my need to gain some skills!

First on the list…literally everything (I died so from step one I go! Luckily my Ogre race was locked not hobgoblin)!

“You look tired” Someone’s talking to me? Back foul devil!

Flipping round, it’s PJ! Foul deviless it is!

“Do I look tired to you? It may have been the now going on 2 days of no sleep but gah sleep is a mundane

necessity for those who do not have skills to earn. For if I go to sleep then when I wake up some other hell will be brought upon my time and I won’t be able to garner all those delicious skills I’ve been wanting to treat myself too” Oh don’t I know that some new strange situation will occur soon, so I must gain skills before I’m dragged into that!

“Excuse me young sir, are you the one they call Joat?”

…

..

.

I will find whoever is cursing me with these things…

…It’s the village elder…and he seems to have forgotten all previous encounters with me?

“Yes that’s him”

PJ!!!!

“Ah perfect, well since you are the leader of these Orphans I’ve come to ask your help in moving the wounded to the nearby town”

Erm, how about no. I’d rather not be dragged into another situation this soon please!

“Please help us, if we can’t take them to the healer they’ll die”

I should care…wait who are the wounded?

“Who are the wounded?”

“Most of the village sadly” Really? Oh so this is the after effect of the battle then!

Why, why am I given such an important task ALREADY! Literally just logged on…huuu.

“And you want us to escort you to the nearby village” Just making sure there’s no raid a dungeon without any prior notice kind of thing going on.

“Yes, we will be going slow and with all we can carry so we will need your protection”

What an odd statement

….

..

.

WAIT a second.

“Are you leaving this village?”

“We have to. The fauna is all dead and all the plants have been burnt to a crisp, there is no habitable place for miles of this village and we will not last more than a week here before our stores run dry”

…

..

.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS GET SOME SKILLS!

“…Fine…but promise that you all teach us what you can” I mean that’s some form of compensation right? RIGHT?

“We will try. Now it will take us 2 days to gather all our belongings, so please rest until then” The village elder then bows and goes off into one of the ruined houses.

AREA EVENT:Village EmigrationThe Village Elder and his villagers will soon be emigrating to a nearby town, where there is fauna and flora for them to survive in.

Also the many wounded villagers need to arrive at town with a week of this quest, to cure their grievous wounds.

All players within this area can participate in this event but must be invited to participate by the event leader, Joat, to get any rewardsRewards: The villagers will pass on some of their knowledge to youCurrent Day: 0

Villagers Remaining: 14

…

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.

“There there you’ll get your free time someday” PJ gives me a pat on the shoulder.

THIS IS UNFAIR! WHY DO I GET NO REST FROM ANY OF THESE ANNYOING SITUATIONS!?!

“At least we’ll learn skills from them right”

“You sure will” I’m crying, literally tears streaming down my face right now….I was so hyped…so hyped to gain some skills but now, now I’m stuck escorting a bunch of Npc’s…

*sniff*

Ah let’s wipe those tears off, because I now need to get everything sorted because I have 2 days, 2 days to learn every freaking skill possible!

“EVERYBODY LISTEN UP” The milling crowd stop loading up some makeshift carts and look my way “WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A MEETING NOW”

Rushing to the broken steps of the tavern, I beckon for everyone to come.

Hmm, doesn’t seem like everyone…not by a long mile

Opening up my friends list, 62 people are missing. Well this is the morning after Halloween, I WAS only here for the skills…but just my luck to get rutted in this mess.

“Right, sit down and listen in” Everyone quietly sits down and I notice 3 old Npc’s (I know only 2 of them) loading up the carts at literal snail pace. “We are going to be escorting them lot to a town, because this place is bust”

I point at Jenna’s house, which for some reason has collapsed, and actually now that I look at it, there’s a giant freaking crater where half the village used to be…?

“SO we have 2 days to prepare before hell breaks loose again”

“Why are we doing this?” A black leopard asks me…hmm never seen him bef-Oh it’s Blacky?! (Recognized him by his voice).

I send them all a quest invite.

“Because there’s nothing for miles around us and when these lot are gone our skill gaining will be limited that’s why” And because we have basically no choice. But I’m sure mostly everyone understands that after reading the quest description

No more questions? Good.

“This meeting is going to have 3 parts” I look for Baila but she isn’t here…hmm I don’t have a scribe.

“I’ll be scribe” Thank you Zzoid, perceptive as per always…

“The first will be sorting out this escort mission. The second part will be skill swapping, because we’ve all learnt that we don’t have enough, by far. And the last part will be general knowledge…and don’t hold back because we’re going to need all we can get”

No one raises their voice or hand.

“Ok, so do any of you know the problem that we’ve been having ever since we’ve tried to work together?”

“We suck at it?” The old kobold points out the answer perfectly, though he doesn’t seem too sure about it himself.

“Precisely. The only ones who seem to actually know how to work together is DillyDally’s Squad Animal” Actually where is h-there you are…and still an elf?

Wait no he’s got little nubs on his forehead…so a different type of elf?

Now that I saw that, the showing members of Squad Animal (I count only 4 of them) have those little nubs on their head and pointy ears too...did they unlock a new race? Ooh! and they're still beastmen too! that's even more awesome!

“Squad Animal?” Someone calls out, yeah I know bit of a strange name but hey it works.

I point over to Dillydally.

“Squad”

“SIR YES SIR” All shout out in perfect unison in response to Dillydally.

Well that sure showed everyone…wow they’re getting good.

“I want us to truly work together, so we’re going to make 4 squads of 12 and 3 more of 13” my math is thankfully working, albeit other parts of my brain are slowly shutting down. “The 13 squads will be special squads, the rest, whatever you can make it to be”

“But why not just let us party as we see fit?” Good question…Glorious (it’s a fat hornless rhino-beastman so I’m assuming it’s him now…since he can’t be a hippo anymore).

“Because then there’s only 8 problems I have to deal with instead of 20 odd. SO get into your squads and from then on we’ll figure out between our leaders what each squad’s task is” Not going to bother with wordplay; the less squads I have to manage the easier life becomes for all of us.

Glorious shrugs his shoulder, I hope he gets it…or maybe he’s too tired to argue just like everyone else.

“So who want’s to be a leader?” Don’t have time for this; I want to just get skills! “Zzoid?” The obvious choice.

“Nah I want to be part of your jinxed squad” Err thanks? And I don’t believe in jinxes!

Also Zzoid’s more human looking than before…but still a lizard?!

“Right, so B0mber?” He's still a slime it seems.

“Sure why not” Thank you; please let’s get this moving on!

“Braxus” People have listened to him before.

“Yeah” He grunts his reply.

That’s 2 down.

“I’ll take one” Ravenna calls out….I think she’s just trying to grow her number of minions…

“And I will in the name of myself lead the other” That’s definitely Anoobis…yup it is.

“Anyone else for normal squads? Nope? Perfect. Right you guys are leaders and you’ll choose your squad schoolground style” They nod “Now for special squads! Apparently I’m one of them, what for we’ll find out soon”

Everyone’s looking at me funny, well I don’t have any idea what will make my squad special. “Mage wannabe’s stand up”

4 people stand up; well it’s more than one. Oh and 2 more people just came online, even better.

“13 of you will be the magic squad, any extras split them between the other squads.”

Everyone ooh’s especially the mage wannabes…because they all feel the magical skills that are to come.

“The last special squad will be run by that guy” I point towards the wild looking elf with long grey hair, still haven’t gotten his name and to be honest never seen him fighting either…

“I’ll be sure to make them mad” Not sure whether that’s a good thing or…

“Right so you’ve all got 2 days to train yourselves up and I hope to Aiag we’re all prepared by then”

“I don’t understand why you’re so uppity about this” The sexy cat-beastlady purrs towards me…why is she one of the few that are online? Doesn’t strike me as the nerd type…

I’m uppity because I’m not frolicking in the field gaining skills as I see fit…but not sure everyone would be happy with that answer.

“How many permanent deaths did we have in the past 24 hours” Zzoid thanks for the help

“39” Tikari calls out. Nice that she’s here and better that I don’t feel anything towards her…but she is still pretty cute. Dammit, go away lingering effects.

Also 39? That’s hell of a lot of people! No wonder I notice a few small changes here and there…

“You see, I don’t want another 39 perma deaths happening when we do this escort mission, okay”

The cat-beastlady nods and sits back down.

“Now as I was saying, you’ve got 2 days. After that, we’re escorting this lot to town”

…

..

.

Phew part 1 done and dusted.

Now to the actual part I wanted to get to from the beginning; SKILLS!!!

“So who’s in whose squad?”

Dammit Zzoid, why’d you have to drag me back into part one.

“Zz’s, pinky’s, Thrash, Krudel and Princess, Baila, Charmine and BoneCrusher and….err does anyone want to be part of my squad”

…

..

.

Seriously? Crickets?

“I’ll go for it” Honey stands up. Thank you Honey saved my dignity, well what’s left of it.

“The rest of you deal with it in a bit” Let’s just move on, please!

They don’t listen and I’m forced to stand through a pick and choose as everyone gets divided into their groups. My life is a living hell right now.

Though I think I fell asleep halfway through because I got subtly poked by Zzoid just before the end.

“Happy?” No complaints it seems “So let us move on to skills” Finally! “Now I say we change our rules slightly so that exquisite stats are shared too, because let’s face it, we need the skills”

That’s only partially the reason; the other reason is that I gave them my brutality stat for free! I want something worthy in return.

“Sounds like a plan” Dillydally…I’m not sure whether he’s with it or against it (well he probably does have a nifty stat or two up his sleeve).

“So beginning as always” Might as well seem like an amazing discoverer of stats for what it’s worth. “I’ve gained 3 stats; Endurance, Intelligence and Mana” I swear half the mage wannabe’s just fainted in delight just then.

I have to give them a minute or two to recover from the joyous shock.

“Endurance is gained through receiving a large amount of pain for a constant period of time, like keeping your hand in the fire till it’s burnt black” A couple of people look pretty queasy at that, but then again everyone has gotten the brutality stat…

“So how did you get that?” Oh who is that curious soul…Blacky it is.

“I put my face into the fire” I have neither the energy nor the patience to try come up with a story.

Most people give me a ‘you’re crazy’ look. I’m not going to deny it to be honest.

“Anyways, Mana is gained through trying to gather it and Intelligence is gained through logical thinking benefiting a situation you’re in, like learning how to not damage a precious material inside a monster gives you intelligence”

Many ooh’s flittering about.

“Anybody out there want to offer up some stats?”

Dillydally stands up once more. Ooh here we go.

“Willpower”

Oddly enough I’m the only one who looks intruigued by it…wait don’t tell me everyone here’s got it already?

“You gain it by forcing yourself mentally through something, like working out past your limit” I will grab it for the sake of Xp! “I’ve also gained the Stamina stat”

OOOH, Stamina!?

“Stamina is like mana but it is used with martial skills”

Wait martial skills? I think there’s more to tell…please do.

“Stamina is gained through well working out cardically” No more info on these ‘martial skills’? Ok guess I’ll wring it out of you later.

Any more stats?

“Fel” Anoobis blurts out after a short moment of silence. “It’s like magic, but you can’t get it. Actually I have no idea how I got it; I simply did”

Great explanation, then why blimming tell us!

I think he’s just showing off…Your Geniousity…

No one else offers stats so let’s move on shall we…to SKILLS!

“I’ve got no new skills, but what does everyone else have”

…

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.

Silence…SERIOUSLY! SERIOUSLY!!!? ALL THIS WAITING FOR NOTHING!?

“Well we learnt a martial skill called frenzy” Oh so that’s what you were using!

“Swimming, Hold your breath, Holding back, Bite” Zzoid ticks off with his fingers. Wait what? Oh yeah! Well I already know about them so that’s a waste of time for me.

“As for spells, the only ones I know are Detect magic and Fire resistance” Tikari adds in to the fangirling of the wannabe mages.

…

..

.

Is that it? Is that seriously all I’m getting; 2 stats and a martial skill…that’s IT!?

This is horrible! we’ve been stuck doing this and that for so long that there’s not even skills to share around!

“Alright we’ll have to convene in a day’s time for skills. We are all going to spend our first day trying to get as many new skills as possible, the more the better”. Everyone nods to that. I mean nobody got any skills really, like any at all!

…

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.

“Actually scratch that” Just by peering around I see everyone's close to being a walking corpse, me included!

“Get two in games days of rest and we’ll convene here lets say 2 hours before departure to get the last few things sorted”

Everyone tiredly agrees. Yeah I wasn’t going to get many good skills out of this…

Now for the last part *sigh*

I first explain the whole stat adjustment business along with how spells work. The information I receive back is that drinking multiple potions at once will have a bad aftereffect and that there are things called sub-classes.

According to Anoobis sub-classes are different to classes as you can have more than one. Well that sounds just delightful!

But once again, we’ve all been stuck in this odd line of quests and raids and events, we haven’t had time to explore the world to actually get something out of this apart from constant random situations.

“MEETING ADJOURNED” I’m tired…but I want to gain many many skills…and I need to work together with my new squad. Why did I even bother with that?

Well whatever, let’s get started from wherever.

*Ding*

Oh I relearnt communication and leadership

…

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.

Oh I forgot to tell everyone…Ah whatever, I’ll tell them next time about it, when they are deserving of my knowledge and will give me all those delicious skills to learn.

Everyone quickly disperses to here, there, everywhere, except for my squad members; well whoever is actually online.

I’m missing Sharpy and co. along with Baila, Charmine, and BC; basically half my squad…not too awful given the circumstances.

“So teacher, what shall we do first!” Zzard, stop being so bubbly and energetic around this tired self please.

“First…LEADERS COME HERE, REST OF YOU TRY RELEARN SKILLS OR LOG OFF” Almost forgot this paramountly important task...

I do get my squad to run off into the empty ashen fields to relearn some skills; seems like they had some rest last night. The remaining lot are the 8 leaders; Me, Dillydally, Braxus, Anoobis, Ravenna, B0mber, The Wild looking Elf and a gnome with a fantastically long green beard (it’s almost touching the ground!).

“Right, we have to figure out what every squad is going to be looking into for the trip, so we get as little overlaps as possible” Thankfully my brain is up to the task of thinking right now, for skills sake.

“Well me and my mages will study spells that don’t require any sort of incantation; ones that can be used by everyone here” The gnomes speaks in murmuring manner, stroking his beard softly.

“We’ll continue studying martial skills” Dillydally inputs quite helpfully.

“I can look at defensive skills” B0mber muses to the group, hmm that’ll be helpful.

“And I will look at offensive skills” Braxus snorts for everyone to hear.

“That leaves proficiencies, which my squad will look into” The wild elf rubs his hands in anticipation.

“Hmm, physical skills such as jump are things we should look at” Ravenna volunteers herself for the passive physical skills, while Anoobis quickly grabs the active ones (well we haven’t learnt many of those).

“And that leaves stats for myself…Right that was surprisingly easily sorted. I’m going to work well with you guys” They all nod gracefully

“We shouldn’t forget about RL schedules” Ravenna inputs as everyone begins to disperse.

…

..

.

I’m going to hate everyone in this little circle by the end of this aren’t I?

“That could be the main way we sort out the normal squads; we have each squad rotating RL with ARIA and that should mostly keep everyone together” Anoobis quickly inputs already forming a plan it seems.

“When we log off, our avatars disappear, so when the re-log they will be left behind by the escort” Ravenna muses to the group

“But that problem is already sorted out by the fact that we’re in squads; the members should log out around the same time and only in the special squads will it be difficult” Anoobis retorts giving me a smarmy smile.

With a fury I detest you this moment Anoobis, with a fury.

“Well we’re transporting wounded so we shouldn’t be moving fast and if we leave landmarks it’ll be easy for the other squads to catch up and even individuals if needs be”

I’m just going to let those two talk it out, I’m happy doing nothing right now.

“That should be fine, so us normal squad leaders should start talking to our possible squadmates to get a working rotary schedule”

*Sigh*

“And I guess we’ll sort out what our special squads are doing” Not going to get away with doing no work…

Mostly everyone disperses to get on with sorting things out, leaving Dillydally, The green-bearded gnome, the wild looking elf and me.

“So I think we should start with names” Would be a good start, and I’ll try my best to remember”

“Sugar”

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.

Alrighty then, I mean I’ve already got Honey in my squad, calling someone Sugar only makes it seem like I’m in some weird polygamic relationship…

At least I won’t need nicknames for either of them…until I do start calling someone else Sugar or Honey…

Note to self, don’t get in a relationship with anybody in my squad because it’ll make naming people difficult.

Anyways, wild elf next.

“Kale”

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.

Once again…is that a plant? I swear I’ve eaten that before too.

Well I guess if I forget his name Planty would do.

“Cool, and I’m hoping you know me, Joat and Dillydally” They both nod.

“So how are we going to sort out our special squad schedules?” Kale raises a grey eyebrow.

“I believe our squads are going to be a complete mess of timetables, so try sort out getting them all together for at least half a day” To be honest pretty much everyone is on here most of the time anyways so this shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

But people do need to go to sleep.

“For sleeping arrangements we should have half our squads logging off on alternating nights” Dillydally adds in to the conversation after a small thought. That sounds like a…well sound idea.

“Right, we’re done for the moment right?” Please say yes, please!

“Yup, don’t see anything else we can sort out just the four of us” Sugar gives a loud yawn “Well I’m off to bed, see you when hell 3.0 begins”

“4.0 for us” Dillydally sends a chuckle my way before also disappearing in a pillar of light

It’s just one long string of hells for me…

“Ahem” Someone’s coughing stops me logging off.

Spinning round, I notice Zzoid typing in the background, probably finishing off the meeting and whatever we just talked about.

“What are we going to do about provisions”

…

..

.

Excuse-me what?

“Food and water” I know what you meant Zzoid…

Opening up my friendslist

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.

I hate this job.

“Well it’s only us 2 so do you want to gather food for over 100 people for a week with me?”

“Hmm tempting, but I do have to sleep soon. What we can do however is see what stores the remaining villager’s houses have” He points towards the 4 remaining buildings, one being the village Elder’s house.

And that means I have to talk to them don’t I? Aaaaaargh don’t have the energy for this!

“Right, fine, I’ll go do it!” Ignoring his chuckling at my rather overzealous display of exasperation, I head towards the Village Elder as he slowly conveys belongings from his house to a makeshift cart.

“Orphan leader Joat, what is amiss?”

“I’ve been wondering how we’re going to feed and water everyone and since there’s no fauna or flora here I was wondering if you had any stores to share?”

“Well…” He fidgets around “There are some foodstuffs left in the remaining houses…but it won’t be enough to feed you all for the week. Water shouldn’t be too much of a problem though, since we’ll be travelling close to a stream for a part of the journey”

“Any food you can spare would be marvelous, thank you”

Bowing to the Elder, I walk a small distance before turning to Zzoid.

“Happy now?”

“Well luckily we can survive off water, but that isn’t the best solution…plus walking on an empty stomach sucks. So if you do want to make me and everyone else happy, it would be an idea to get a squad to hunt for food, possibly head to the stream a day early and catch some fish if there are any”

“Oh really? Well you just volunteered”

“…Yourself”

…

..

.

Oh bugger he’s right!

“You know what, screw it, we’ll do it, I’ll do it. Tomorrow, all our squad goes out hunting”

“With how jinxed we are we’re sure to find something that’ll try kill us”

“Thanks for the optimism, now get to sleep you little blighter”

Zzoid chuckles as he logs off.

Finally!!!

Now to log the hell off and get myself some so well deserved rest.

Man I was in such a fantastic mood just barely an hour ago…

Whatever, this’ll be another adventure in my messed up experience of ARIA!

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Author's Corner:

HEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

Sorry about the short Hiatus, RL has been pounding me with Social Life (eugh) Sooo here's a chappy thanks to Tcy reminding me that i kind of haven't posted in a while!

Right so because RL is starting up for me i've got 4 days until quite literally i'm placed into a whirlwind of 24/7 activity for basically the whole of october.

Sooo i'm going to go on a month Hiatus and i'll update you on the start of November (with a chapter, ooh!) with how much free time I have to write for youse!

So *sniff* i will no be seeing any of you for this month and you will have to reread the chapters in anticipation *sniff*

Goodbye my cookie loving readers, adieu for a small while

-TRUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE*sniff*EEEEEEEEENORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRD